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Den Hemliga Eskadern/plot
The section headings do not occur in the book. These are added here to make for easier reading. A discreet investigation At the airport in Georgetown, British Guiana, plane after plane disappears. Finally, when a large Douglas DC-3 is missing from its parking place, the airport staff feel they must report it. But the owners, Banana Airlines, don't seem interested and don't respond. The Governor, Colonel Hancock, tells his staff to file the case and forget it. A month later, at an R.A.F. airbase in Georgetown, the top secret FRX-1 jet fighter also goes missing. The base commander doesn't want to report this through official channels. He asks Colonel Winston to call on his old friend Raymond for help. Raymond summons Biggles and Algy and briefs them about the case. They must solve the mystery in a short time otherwise he will have to raise the matter through official channels. Biggles and Algy depart on a Short Solent for the long trans-Atlantic flight. Along the way, Algy has time to romance the flight stewardess. A blast from the past At the British airbase, Biggles and Algy are briefed about the Farnon FRX-1, noting in particular, its ability to achieve a sudden burst of speed, its fuel economy and rocket armament. The base commander explains that the FRX-1 had just come in from a rocket firing test and then placed in a hangar guarded by Corporal Symes. Symes had disappeared with the plane. He had probably been abducted. The plane was still armed with rockets. After the briefing, Biggles looks for Algy who has been making enquiries around the airport. In the past one and a half months, eight light aircraft and a DC-3 had disappeared from the airport. The DC-3 suspicious because the airline said it never had a plane by that registration although they had lost one with a different registration some weeks earlier. Secondly, traces of paint had been found on the ground outside a hangar rented to a Panama registered company Conclave Ltd. Later, Biggles also learns that one of the passengers on the DC-3 was an Italian priest, one Emilio Stromboli. Biggles has an epiphany. He thinks back about an encounter in the Kalahari. Conclave ... the cardinal! Is he involved here? Biggles and Algy break into the hangar and find ... a Beaufighter! Freshly painted over. The plane might disappear soon, so Biggles decides to stand guard over it. Meanwhile he sends Algy to do what he does best, hang out at the bars where the pilots go to and listen out. El Toro That night, Algy ends up in Drakes Bar, a known hangout of smugglers and crooks. There are some aviators there so Algy thinks it's a good place to start. He sits at the bar near a man known as El Toro. He doesn't like the way Algy is looking at him and picks a fight. But Algy gives as good as he gets and floors him. El Toro laughs in good humour. he knows when he has been beaten and declares that he and Algy shall be friends. Some men in a passing truck throw a stick of dynamite into the bar. There is a big explosion and the building is demolished but Algy pulls El Toro from the wreckage. Have you many enemies? Only several thousand, answers El Toro. He is indebted to Algy for saving him and asks Algy to work for him but Algy says he needs some answers first. El Toro agrees and tells him what happened. The bar had a cache of weapons and ammunition and that was why it blew up. He is a freedom fighter and commander of a secret army in his country Gudiana. And El Toro gives instructions on how to get in contact if Algy wishes to join him. This involves sending a telegram to one Senor Amado at Hotel Miramar at Cordoba, the capital of Gudiana. Biggles is pleased with the results. He sends Algy to watch the Beaufighter. He will impersonate Algy and make contact and join El Toro. It's his turn to have some fun. Biggles goes to Cordoba Biggles takes a DC-3 to Cordoba. At the airport, he thinks he sees von Stalhein! Is he hallucinating? Biggles checks in at the Hotel Miramar after having sent the telegram. Jorge Amado is the hotel receptionist. He tells his colleague Estella Gonzales that her contact is here. Meanwhile, Biggles takes lunch at the hotel restaurant. Three men walk in. He recognises one as Obersturmbahnfuhrer Kreuter, an S.S. officer he met at Gibralter just before the war. If he is here, von Stalhein can't be far away! Fortunately for Biggles, Jorge recognises the three as part of a murder squad. He tells Estella who gets Biggles out of the dining room on the pretext that he has a phone call. She tells Biggles she has been sent by El Toro to get Algy. Biggles asks if she recognises the name von Stalhein. Stella explains that he is the chief of security of the President of Gudiana and the military adviser. Biggles tells him he is an old enemy from the war. Estella reasons that he must have seen Biggles and so sent the murder squad. Biggles must get away. They escape into a side street but the murder squad is there! Biggles tells Estella to get away while he delays them. He explains that he is not Algy but Algy's cousin. There is no time for further explanations, she must go. She promises to come back for him and runs off. Kreuter takes Biggles prisoner. Von Stalhein wants to question him, he says. Into El Toro's camp Back at Georgetown, Algy is getting worried about not having heard from Biggles. He stows away inside the Beaufighter to keep watch over it. His patience is rewarded. Late at night, two men climb on board and fly off in it. It is a long flight over some high mountains but it eventually lands at a primitive jungle airstrip. The two men climb out. One of them is indeed the Cardinal! Algy pounces on him. He has been looking forward to getting even with the Cardinal for some time. But someone arrives to break the scuffle up. It's El Toro! El Toro is glad Algy has decided to join him. He takes him on a tour of his base. It is full of old warplanes which he has gathered, to fight for the freedom of his country. But just in case Algy doesn't feel like an old propellor plane, he has a nice new jet fighter. It's the FRX-1! Algy is indignant. He accuses El Toro of being a thief. But El Toro explains that all his planes have been bought with money. Cardinal Emilio has been the one who has bought them aircraft and weapons from all over the world. For some reason, the Cardinal has been very helpful to his cause. El Toro summons the Cardinal over to explain how the FRX-1 was obtained. The Cardinal stammers and mutters incoherently and then runs off into the jungle. El Toro fires a few shoots after him. He admits it appears the FRX-1 was stolen, but he had paid for it in good faith. Algy says that he believes him. A plan for rescue El Toro takes Algy to meet his pilots. Meanwhile, Estrella arrives with news that Biggles has been captured. Algy explains how he and Biggles had been sent to Georgetown to investigate the disappearance of the FRX-1. El Toro thinks Biggles is being held at Fortress Phoenix. This is a secret Nazi base set up in the mountains. Here the Nazi refugees had been developing new secret weapons and training their secret army and air force. El Toro sees only one way out. Algy must join him in their attack on Fortress Phoenix. Then they get to free Biggles and destroy the base at the same time. They plan to strike the next day just before dawn. The fighters would engage the Nazi air opposition and then the bombers will come in and flatten the base. Algy will take the FRX-1. After that, he and Biggles can take the plane back. Attack on Fortress Phoenix The next day, El Toro's motley force of old World War 2 warplanes takes off and strike Fortress Phoenix. They achieve surprise but the Germans scramble Me 262s to engage the attackers and a ferocious dogfight ensues. El Toro soon realises that Cardinal Emilio has tricked them as his planes are being outclassed by the opposition and he sustains heavy losses. In the midst of the fighting, Algy spots Biggles and lands to pick him up. Biggles takes the controls of the FRX-1 and once in the air, launches some rockets and destroys the airstrip and aircraft factory which has been producing the Me 262 aircraft. El Toro tells them to also blow up the batteries of V-weapons. This would put an end to the base. Biggles launches some more rockets and there is a massive explosion. The remaining Me 262 aircraft see their base destroyed and retreat. El Toro is jubilant but then an Me 262 comes out from nowhere and damages his plane. He makes a forced landing, straight into the path of a car! It's Kreuter and Commandant von Goldenhase trying to escape! El Toro takes them prisoner. Category:Plot summaries (derivative works)